SEO Update: Google Amazes With Location-Aware Search

You are here

Several search announcements in the past two weeks are relevant for monitoring present and future search impacts. Google made an algorithmic tweak to its general core search algorithm, yielding higher than usual volatility in search results. Google confirmed that it was unrelated to its SSL change, Panda updates, and Penguin updates, but this is something that Google does hundreds of times in a year – usually just not as noticeablely.

Also of note: Bing is following the footsteps that Google made in 2013 by encrypting search traffic by default. Previously, Bing had made this an opt-in option for its searchers, but citing privacy commitments, the Microsoft search engine will be making this change this summer. Read on for more updates…

From the iCrossing blog

Learn How to Prepare Your Brand for the Future of SEO Rankings

At the recent SMX Advanced conference, three topics stood out as ones that digital marketers should be aware of. Learn what speakers from Google, Searchmetrics, and Moz had to say about new ranking factors and how you can capitalize on them.

Google’s New Search Analytics Reviewed: 5 Best Ways to Use this Data

Google recently launched a Search Analytics report within its Search Console service. Learn how to best use the data there for insights into your site’s search performance and walk away with actionable takeaways to improve visibility.

SEO industry updates

Bing to Encrypt Search Traffic by Default

Bing is following the precedent set by Google in 2013 and will begin encrypting all search traffic by default, where previously this was an opt-in effort by searchers. Like Google, the Microsoft search engine cites its commitment to “helping users to keep their data safe and secure.” The referrer-string information will continue to be passed to webmaster as far as the data source attribution, but the query used to trigger the visit will no longer be available. It mentioned limited query-term data will be available through its Search Query Terms Report, Universal Event Tracking, and its Keyword and Ranking Data within Bing Webmaster Tools. Read more

Google Trends Gets More Real-Time – Now Including YouTube and Google News

The announcement of including “minute-by-minute, real-time” data into Google Trends will help to quickly determine timely trending topics. To help support this update, Google has refreshed the Google Trends page to home in on topics that are currently ranking, either through Google or YouTube searches, or stories on Google News. The intention of this was to create a more story-centric homepage. The new homepage is available in 28 countries and will be rolled out to additional countries in the future. Read more

Google Core Search Algorithm Update

Many automated tracking tools reported a significant shift in Google search results yesterday. Many thought it was the impending Panda update, but Google has confirmed that it was not, but in fact, it was an update to its core search algorithm. The intent of this update was to improve overall search quality, and thus, these updates have been deemed “Google Quality” updates by industry leaders. Read more

Apple Brings Public Transit, New Search Capabilities to Maps

Apple Maps is finally getting public transit mapping capabilities after Windows and Android having this feature on smartphones for years. The information will be initially available to only 10 cities outside of China to start with. A second new feature to maps will be a "nearby" capability to show restaurants and attractions, allowing users to pay using Apple Pay. Read more

Google is using its location awareness on smartphones to answers questions without having to use the name of where you are. For example, when in front of a church, you can ask Google Now, "What church is this?" Google will know what you are talking about, and give you the correct answer. This will work for many different types of requests and questions. Read more

Following the lead of Google, Bing, and Facebook, Apple will now allow deep linking in apps. Deep linking is a feature that allows content to be linked to that is deep inside an app. For example, if you wanted to link to a recipe located in a app, you can now send a link to that part of the app to another user. This is also slightly different than Google's feature, in that you don’t need a web version counterpart to take advantage of this. Read more and here

Send Places from Browser to The iPhone in Google Maps 4.7 Update

You can now, from Google Maps, send a push notification to your iOS device with a link to a map to a specific address. The "Send to Device" feature is located under the address and will appear in the new Google Maps when the feature is available for a specific search. This feature should already be live. Read more